Uryuomoco
Uryuomoco is the native language spoken by the Uryuom race and selected other characters that have been taught the language by Uryuoms. Its construction is a simple substitution cipher of the related English words, with some exceptions (to ensure it is actually readable). Note that "URYUOM" translates to "alien", and "URYUOMOCO" to "alienese". Throughout the article below, capital letters are used to designate text that is in Uryuomoco with lowercase as English text, in typical ciphertext/plaintext convention. Usage in comic When Uryuoms first appeared in the comic, Dan though it would be nifty and fun to let them have their own language, but later abandoned the idea of actually using it in comics for two reasons, explained in comics commentary: first, he lost the key (but fans quickly sent it to him when he mentioned it) and second, he decided that if it's something people are supposed to understand he shouldn't unnecessarily complicate it. Translating Uryuomoco into English Letterwise substitution The basis for a translation is to use the following substitution cipher (note this isn't sufficient by itself for encoding/decoding due to the special cases detailed below): abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz UVSJOHTFYDPRNMEKWLCGABQZIX (This substitution works in either direction, since letters are grouped in pairs; that is, "a" in English is "U" in Uryuomoco, and "A" in Uryuomoco is "u" in English.) Rules for special cases Certain letters are treated specially during substitution: * The English "s" preceded by a vowel is rendered as "c". The English "s" preceded by a consonant appears to be rendered as "is". Also, "ss" is rendered "ais". * "Qu" (rather than "q") is treated as one letter on both sides (so English "qu" maps onto Uryuomoco "w" and English "w" maps onto Uryuomoco "qu"). * "Yu" (rather than "y") appears to be treated as one letter in Uryuomoco but not in English. Presumably the Uryuomoco sound in question is an iotation of "U". Also, consonants followed by "h" are frequently treated irregularly during substitution: * English "th" is rendered "ch" (not "gf") in Uryuomoco (which would otherwise correspond to English "sf"). * English "sh" is rendered "us" (not "cf") in Uryuomoco (making it the same as English "ac"). * More minor examples: English "ch" is rendered "se" (not "sf"), English "wh" is rendered "quo" (not "quf"). * The behaviour of English "ph" is not attested. Additionally, several minor changes to certain letter combinations appear to be made after substitution, making the intended pronunciation of the Uryuomoco text clearer: * "H" is appended to a Uryuomoco word ending in "E". * "A" is appended to a Uryuomoco word ending in "J". * The Uryuomoco sequence "YUMT" (YMT letterwise), corresponding to the English "ing", is elided to "OT", at least when used as a suffix. * Uryuomoco "TL" is written as "TUL". * Uryuomoco "RR" (as a suffix) is written as "RA". * Also, "UI" (in Uryuomoco) becomes "UYU" at the end of a word. Whether this happens to Uryuomoco words with any vowel followed by "i" at the end is not clear. It does not occur if the "i" is preceded by a consonant. List of special cases In total, the full list of sequences of letters which appear to have special treatment, in some or all contexts, is below: The AC codes denote the relationship to the Anticarrot guide (archive of original format) used by the Ookii translator: * ACx - Not listed, but this does not impede the translator offering the correct result. * AC2 - Not originally listed in this table, added to concord with the Anticarrot guide. Derived superstring clusters may have been listed in this table. * AC1 - Listed in the Anticarrot guide and this table. * AC0 - Not listed in the Anticarrot guide and therefore not implemented by the Ookii translator. Note that "i" has always been written as "YU", and "w" has always been written as "QU". This frees up all other combinations of "Y*" and "Q*" for use as digraphs, but this may also make the text difficult to read as Uryuomoco. Example translations The following is a partial list of translations seen in EGS thus far. Additionally, the "Tam Eh" in the title of the "Tam Eh Tedd" storyline translates to "gun of," so the title means "Gun of Tedd." Characters known to speak Uryuomoco Elliot.gif|Elliot|link=Elliot Verres.gif|Edward Verres |link=Edward Verres Grace.gif|Grace|link=Grace Mr. Guyur.PNG|Dr. Guyur|link=Mr. Guyur Tedd.gif|Tedd|link=Tedd Will and Gill.PNG|William and Gillian|link=William and Gillian External links * Ookii's English/Uryuomoco Translator (disambiguates by dictionary and by drop-down menu; note that this does not implement all cluster rules, resulting in minor errors in some canonical texts) * HarJIT's English/Uryuomoco Translator (should work on all canonical texts, uses apostrophes for disambiguating less usual forms) References Category:Language Category:Concepts Category:Uryuom